


Last Night's Storm Front

by regionals



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Drug Use, Fluff, Holidays, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Slow Dancing, Underage Drinking, Vague angst, but also it was the 80s and the drinking age was 18 so is it rly, steve is a canon stoner it happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21816628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regionals/pseuds/regionals
Summary: Steve wants to ask him why his apartment was the first place he decided to go, but doing anything other than asking him what he wants from the Chinese restaurant down the street seems inappropriate.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 6
Kudos: 83
Collections: Harringrove Holiday Exchange 2019





	Last Night's Storm Front

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Klayr_de_Gall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Klayr_de_Gall/gifts).



> **this note is for klayr and klayr only:** when i sat down to write this is what came out i hope u like it :’) the request said “feel good fluff” and i know that was like a fraction of it but my gremlin brain took it and spat some post s3 holiday/thanksgiving fluff back out. also i fully wrote a fic where the bulk of it takes place on thanksgiving only to go check ur ao3 and realize you're not american and that i shouldve just wrote a christmas fic like a normal person
> 
> **for everyone else reading this:** sup

Steve moves after Starcourt. He doesn’t move too far — an hour away on a bad day, to another small town — but he moves, because Hawkins starts to feel as if it’s cursed. His parents don’t get it, and his mom cries over him moving out, but, really, he can’t expect them to  _ get it. _

It’s not as if he could really explain why, either, beyond vague terms and bullshit explanations of just needing some change.

Things aren’t too bad, though. His dad hooks him up with a cushy office job, and it’s not the kind of job he wants to stay at forever, but it pays the bills and doesn’t make him want to kill himself like working at Scoops sometimes did, so he doesn’t complain.

His apartment is pretty nice as well. The floor plan is open, but the walls are covered in wood paneling and there’s shag carpet — reminiscent of the den in his childhood home, and he likes it. It’s  _ cozy,  _ and he feels at home in his apartment, in a way he hasn’t felt since he was a kid.

*

_ Billy  _ turns up at his apartment in September, when the weather starts going from sweltering to chilly.

He looks like shit. Jeans that used to hug his legs hang off of them like drapes over a curtain, and the sweatshirt he’s wearing looks a few sizes too big. His hair goes down past his shoulders and Steve can see the scarring that peeks out from under the collar of his sweatshirt.

Steve doesn’t ask him why he’s there. He doesn’t have to, because Billy says, “My dad kicked me out,” and, really, that’s the end of  _ that  _ conversation.

Steve knows that the only reason he himself is even standing there, alive and breathing, is because of Billy, so he just tells him, “C’mon, then,” before stepping back.

He’s quiet. He doesn’t act like he owns the place. He parks his ass on Steve’s couch, and upon seeing the ashtray on the side table, he lights up a cigarette.

Steve wants to ask him why his apartment was the first place he decided to go, but doing anything other than asking him what he wants from the Chinese restaurant down the street seems inappropriate.

(Orange chicken and pork fried rice.)

*

Billy doesn’t leave and Steve realizes he never quite expected him to leave either.

He’s sleeping when Steve gets up in the morning and he’s usually not there when Steve gets off work. It takes him two weeks to realize that Billy has a job. The only reason he realizes Billy has a job is because he gets slipped a few fifties, followed by Billy just sort of muttering, “For bills,” to him.

The way he sounds — he sounds as if he’s scared of pissing Steve off. 

Steve takes the money, says, “Gotcha,” and leaves it at that.

*

Steve can tell when he's around Will that there's side effects that come along with essentially being possessed. He doesn't know the extent of it, mostly because he hasn't asked, but he can just  _ tell.  _ Sometimes the kid just gets this distant, far away look on his face, or sometimes Steve catches offhand mentions of it.

Billy is more…  _ forthright  _ about it. 

He talks about it on an evening that Steve decides to share some of his pot with him. 

"It's kind of like how dogs just  _ know  _ when something's off. Sixth sense sort of shit. It's like only looking at someone, and immediately being able to gauge what kind of person they are. I sound nuts, right?" His tongue is in his cheek, and he's flicking his Zippo on and off.

"I mean, yeah, but I've also seen some crazy shit." Steve shrugs, and when he's finished coughing on a toke, he asks, "What kind of person am I?"

"You're… alright. I mean — you let me eat your groceries. Can't be all bad. And… you're gonna order a pizza when we get hungry later, right?"

Steve squints at him. "Are you trying to get me to order you pizza?"

"Maybe." He's good at acting coy. "I'm just saying — you're the kind of guy that's gonna get me stoned, and order me pizza."

He's not wrong.

*

Billy’s something of a recluse, and Steve doesn’t realize it until it happens, but, he’s made it his mission to coax Billy out of his shell. He  _ gets it,  _ because, yeah, after his own run-ins with the upside down bullshit — he’s had a tendency to isolate himself for months at a time. Speaking, or thinking, from experience, he knows it’s not healthy.

He’s not a dick about trying to get Billy to leave the apartment for something other than work. Sometimes, if he goes out somewhere, he’ll invite him, or if he needs to go grocery shopping, he’ll ask Billy if he wants to go. Sometimes he goes, sometimes he doesn’t, and Steve doesn’t ever push him, not beyond asking him if he’s sure he wants to stay home.

Steve does learn, though, that Billy’s pretty fun to hang out with on the occasion he can get him out of the apartment. He talks (or mumbles) a lot, a constant running commentary, and really, he’s the only person Steve’s ever met that can make grocery shopping enjoyable. He’s  _ never _ had a reason to laugh at cereal before Billy.

They’re in a Kroger, and Steve’s reaching for a box of stovetop pasta when Billy asks, “You’re only being nice to me because of what happened, aren’t you?”

It’s enough of a change from the running, dry commentary for Steve to drop the box in his hand, and to cuss quietly under his breath. He picks the box back up, and tosses it into the cart before looking him in the eye and answering him. “Honest to god? Yeah, that’s part of it. I’m also not an asshole, and you need to eat, so push the damn cart and quit with the self deprecating bullshit.”

Billy looks — taken aback, more than anything. Steve’s half expecting him to snap back at him, but he just lifts his lip a little bit before telling him,  _ “Fine,”  _ and leaving it at that.

*

Holiday season starts and Steve makes plans.

He plans to go back to his parents’ for Thanksgiving.

At least until he discovers that Billy doesn’t have anything planned for that holiday. (Christmas is a whole other story, but Steve hasn't made plans for that holiday yet.)

He asks, “Are you doing anything for the holidays?”

Billy shrugs and taps the ashes from his cigarette into the kitchen sink. (Steve’s cooking and Billy sometimes likes to watch him.) “Probably gonna park my ass on your couch and watch TV.”

“Huh.” Steve frowns, even if Billy can’t see his face. “That sounds like shit.”

“It’s the way it goes, I guess. Pretty sure my dad would shoot me on sight if I tried turning up in Hawkins, so. Y’know.”

“Why don’t you just spend Thanksgiving with me and my family? My parents suck and all, but being alone during the holidays — that’s just sad, man.”

“Dude, my existence is kind of sad.”

“First of all, I said quit it with the self deprecating bullshit,” he turns around to wave a rubber spatula at him menacingly, “and  _ second of all, _ I still think spending holidays alone is sad.”

“Well, I don’t want to spend them around your waspy parents. I would rather  _ die  _ than spend Thanksgiving with your parents.”

“You’ve never even met them,” Steve points out, as he’s transferring the food in the pan to a few bowls.

“Right, but you  _ just  _ said that they suck, and I don’t know about you, man, but I don’t think your parents are gonna take too kindly to you walking into their house with the personification of a gay ashtray.”

“Well, good to know you’re gay, and — I mean, you’re probably right. Y’know, no offense and shit.”

“Oh, none taken. I know I’m right.” Billy also mumbles a  _ ‘thank you’  _ to Steve as he’s taking the bowl that gets handed to him. He slips his hands a little further into his sweatshirt sleeves so he can carry the hot bowl without burning his hands as he follows Steve towards the dining table. “Also — why is it ‘good to know’ that I’m gay?”

Steve turns to make eye contact with him before offering him the tiniest of shrugs. “You’re not the only gay person in the world, dude.”

“You’re shitting me!  _ You?” _

“Uh, yeah.” Steve sets his bowl down on the table, and retraces his steps back into the kitchen to grab utensils. (Billy thanks him for the utensils, too.) “If I recall correctly, and I'm not naming any names, _Billy,_ but  _ someone  _ told me at some point that I’d have to be gay to break up with Nancy, and, I mean… You weren’t wrong.”

“Oh, man, I was totally just teasing you, but… Y’know.  _ Good to know.” _

“Ha-ha.” Steve flips him off.

*

Most of November passes in a blur of subtle flirting and unestablished gay chicken. (A few of Steve’s coats go missing, too, only to appear in Billy’s laundry.)

It’s — weird. It’s as if as soon as Billy knows it’s  _ safe  _ to hit on Steve, he just… lights up.

Billy isn’t weird or gross about hitting on him, though. If anything, he’s  _ polite.  _ Little compliments here and there, enough to make Steve’s cheeks burn, to make his heart beat a little faster, to get that tingly feeling in his stomach.

Steve thinks that part of the reason Billy doesn’t blow him off too much anymore is because it gives them an excuse to spend time together. It’s still rural Indiana, and Steve would rather be caught dead than flirting with another guy, at least in public, but — sometimes, it’s nice to feel Billy’s fingers around his wrist for a few seconds, or for him to lean in a little too close into Billy’s personal space.

At some point, Billy even asks him, “It’s not weird that I’m hitting on you, right?”

Steve’s honest with him, too. “I mean, it’s weird, but… Honestly? I’m enjoying it. I like the attention.”

*

Steve hasn’t ever been the type of person to fully enjoy Thanksgiving, at least not beyond the concept of having an excuse to eat half of a pie in one sitting. There are always too many people, too many arguments over the dinner table about politics, or whatever age old family  _ bullshit  _ that no one has ever quite gotten over. Especially since Nancy enlightened him on what, exactly, Thanksgiving stands for, it’s lost even more charm for him, and with all of that considered, he decides that Thanksgiving this year is pretty alright.

Steve buys a rotisserie chicken from the Kroger down the street the day before, and reheats it the next evening. He goes through the (not so) painstaking process of making stuffing from the box, in a separate dish, since the chicken is too small to even  _ think  _ about stuffing it, and Billy provides the pumpkin pie. 

It’s a bare bones version of Thanksgiving, the  _ ghost  _ of a Thanksgiving dinner, but they still nearly eat themselves sick before settling down onto the couch in the living room with a few glasses of wine and a mixtape playing quietly from Steve’s stereo.

Steve’s a few  _ full _ glasses of wine deep when he gets up to flip the tape over to the b-side, and he blames it on the wine when he gestures for Billy to stand up and come towards him as a sorta slow song comes on.

As soon as Steve reaches for his hands, pulling him closer with the intention of slow dancing with him, Billy says, “Fuck you, I’m not doing this,” to him, before trying to pull back.

“Oh,  _ c’mon.”  _ Steve pulls him back. “You’ve been buttering me up for a month, and I’m a romantic. Let’s slow dance. Pretend we’re at prom, in some alternate universe where Tommy H. wouldn’t be calling us names from the sidelines.”

Billy makes a face at him. “My mistake. I didn’t realize you were so fuckin’ corny. Is it too late to take the flirting back?”

Steve grins at him stupidly, wraps his arms around Billy’s waist, and smacks a kiss onto his cheek. “Way too late, amigo. I’m a little drunk, too, so if you don’t slow dance with me, I  _ might  _ cry.”

“And?” Billy doesn’t try backing off again, even going so far as to let Steve lead, even if it’s clumsily and mostly uncoordinated. “I’m an asshole. You can’t cry and get your way with me.”

“Okay, well,  _ maybe  _ you’re right.” Steve draws out the ‘e’ noise in the ‘maybe.’ “But, tell me this — would you ever make me cry?”

“I mean, I broke your nose last year, so it’s definitely somethin’ I could realistically do.”

“But  _ would  _ you?”

Billy makes another face, a subtle sort of sneer, before giving him a reluctant and flustered answer. “... Probably not. I wouldn’t  _ want  _ to, at least.”

“Then there we go. Slow dance with me, and it won’t happen.”

“Dumbass — we’ve  _ been  _ slow dancing.” Billy laughs. Steve’s heard him laugh — he’s heard the dry, humorless, mean spirited laugh that he does when he’s pissed, or looking for a fight, and he’s heard his genuine  _ srhiek  _ laugh that he does when something’s genuinely fucking hilarious, but this one is softer — fonder, maybe. “You really can’t hold your alcohol of two glasses of wine gets you goofy like this.”

“Not my fault they changed the laws, bro.” Steve wraps his arms a little tighter around him, and at this point, the slow dancing goes from slow dancing to drunkenly hugging and swaying back and forth. “It’s like when you have pot for the first time in awhile. Always hits ya harder.”

Billy hugs him back and keeps swaying. One of his hands finds itself in Steve’s hair as the older boy rests his head on Billy’s shoulder. “Still. For someone once deemed a  _ keg king,  _ at least before  _ I  _ came along, it’s pretty comical.”

Steve snorts and closes his eyes. “Screw you.”

“Do it yourself,” is what Billy quips back at him, before letting out another one of those fond laughs. It rumbles in his chest and the sound of it almost harmonizes with the rain from last night’s storm front that’s still pitter-pattering against the windows of the apartment. 

Steve actually laughs himself this time, and shakes his head as much as he can against Billy’s shoulder. “Shut up.”

**Author's Note:**

> i listened to enchanted by the platters and beth by kiss while writing the slow dancing  
> id link a playlist but idk how ao3 assignments work and i dont wanna ruin the surprise via spotify since im here a few days early


End file.
